The story of Great Week Consols Tin Mine is one of intrigue and may well be a case of “All that glitters is not gold.” According to the Cultural Heritage Desk Based Assessment of Chagford the first mine may well date back to medieval times? In relation to medieval tinning …

“About 1. m. N. of Bridford, and on a hill that sweeps abruptly down to the Teign, is Hel Tor, whence the climber to its breezy summit looks over a wide extent of East Devon, the panorama being as beautiful as it is varied.”, Crossing, p.268. William Crossing was not …

  Having just written a page on Dartmoor field names one struck a chord and that was ‘Conchie’s Field‘, additionally quite recently somebody posted a picture of ‘Conchie’s Road‘ and asked why it was so called. So as it’s part of Dartmoor’s heritage I thought it may be worthwhile to …

  One thing that Devon and therefore Dartmoor are not short of are fields; big ones, little ones, recent ones, prehistoric ones, steep ones, and flat ones, they  surround Dartmoor on all sides. Some are enclosed by hedges whilst others stone, all with the same purpose to delineate boundaries, keep …

“Over this old road very large quantities of peat were formerly annually conveyed on the backs of packhorses, as I have learnt from old men who at one time worked at the turf-ties to which it leads.” Crossing, p. 55. Many moons ago the small moorland village of Peter Tavy …

  A few weeks ago I received the following email from Mike Rhodes: “Dear Tim, Firstly thank you for your excellent website. As a Devonshire lad I have long been fascinated by Dartmoor and reading your material brings back happy memories of stories told while camping for Ten Tors and letterboxing. …

“By the lone fountain’s secret bed’ Where human footsteps rarely tread, ‘Mid the wild moor of silent glen, The sundew blooms unseen by men; Spreads there her leaf of rosy bloom, A chalice for the morning dew, And, ere the summers sun can rise, Drinks the pure waters of the …

Corndon Down was a very special place for the folk who roamed Dartmoor in the Bronze Age, so much so it could have been regarded as a ritual place where they buried their dead. Why? Probably because of the wide ranging vistas that can be seen from the top of …

“One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl and four for a boy,  five for silver, six for gold and seven for a secret never to be told, eight for a wish, nine for a kiss, ten for a bird that’s best to miss.”“ I will bet that …

Curse definition: “A solemn utterance intended to invoke a supernatural power to inflict harm or punishment on someone or something.” So how long have we vengeful humans been cursing? In Britain there is ‘documented’ evidence in the form of curses written on tablets which date back to between the 2nd …